the color sun · 2019-09-03 · electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and...
TRANSCRIPT
The
Colorof
the
Sun
The
Colorof
the
Sun
David Almond
This is a work of fi ction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or, if real, are used fi ctitiously.
Copyright © 2018 by David Almond
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information
retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,
taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. edition 2019First published by Hachette Children’s Group (U.K.) 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2019939006ISBN 978-1-5362-0785-9
19 20 21 22 23 24 LSC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in Crawfordsville, IN, U.S.A.
This book was typeset in Bembo.
Candlewick Press99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
For Julia
One
It’s an ordinary summer day, the day that Jimmy Killen
dies and comes to life again. It’s the middle of the
summer, when it sometimes seems like time stands still,
when it seems there’s nothing at all to do. Davie’s in his
bed, in the shadows behind his bedroom curtains when
it all begins. The whole day lies before him, but he
wants to stay there. He wants to be older so he could be
with a lass or go drinking with the lads. He wants to be
younger so he could run about yelling like a daft thing.
His mam calls up from down below.
“Davie! Get yourself out into the sun, lad!”
He peeps through the curtains. He’s dazzled by the
light. He can see nothing when he turns back to his
2 p
David Almond
room. He rubs his eyes till his sight returns and he sees
it all anew.
“Davie!”
“Yes, Mam!”
He starts digging through some ancient toys. Animal
masks have been hanging inside his wardrobe door for
so long he’s nearly forgotten that they’re there at all.
They’ve been gathering dust since he was four or fi ve.
A gorilla, a tiger, a horse, a fox. The fox was best. He’d
pull it on and leap and screech to make his parents
terrifi ed. He does it again now, alone in his shady
bedroom. He looks out through the fox eyes and raises
his claws, and he snarls and imagines he’s slaughtering
a coop full of chickens.
“Davie! What the heck you doing up there?”
He laughs and rips the mask off. He laughs again to
see the plastic antlers dangling on the door as well. How
could he have forgotten them? He sticks them on his
head. He steps quietly through the room, looking out
for predators. He rocks his head and shakes the antlers.
He leaps and dances silently, and soon the antlers start
to feel like proper antlers. The room feels like a forest.
He starts to lose himself in the old game of being a boy
who’s also a beast.
3 p
The Color of the Sun
He pauses. Why am I doing all this? he wonders.
Maybe it’s time to get rid of things, time to chuck
this childish stuff out.
Mam calls from down below again.
“Davie!”
“Aye!” he calls. “Coming, Mam!”
But he keeps on digging. He fi nds some ancient
coloring pencils, from when he was maybe fi ve or six.
There’s an old sketchbook as well, with a faded green
cover and brittle pages. He opens it and comes upon
things he hasn’t seen for years: scrawled pictures of dark
monsters and slithery snakes. Stick fi gures of his mam
and dad, pictures of the house, a scribbly sketch of a
lovely black-and-brown dog they used to have called
Stew. A page full of pictures of himself. A picture of a
baby with messy writing beside it: Davie as a bayby. A
picture of an ancient man with a beard: Davie wen he
is old. And here’s the beginning of an ancient tale that
starts and then gets nowhere past the fi rst two sentences:
Wons ther was a boy calld Davie and he wonted an advencha.
So he got sum sanwichs and he got his nife and set owt into
the darknes. The ends of the pencils are chewed and he
chews them again, and he thinks how weird it is that he’s
probably tasting himself as he was all those years ago.
4 p
David Almond
“Davie!”
There’s an old gray haversack. His dad gave it to
him a few years ago. Davie used to stride around the
house with it on his back, marching and saluting and
carrying an imaginary rifl e on his shoulder. He puts the
fox mask, the antlers, the pencils and the book into it.
He slings it across his shoulders and goes down.
Mam’s in the red-hot kitchen. She’s been baking,
making bara brith and lemon meringue pie, such lovely
things. There’s a smell of lemon, raisins, warm yeasty
dough. Davie salivates as he imagines the delicious food
on his tongue.
She stands there with her arms folded. There’s drifts
of white fl our on her red-and-white apron. Dad’s
favorite painting, of sunfl owers, is shining bright on
the wall behind her. Sunlight pours into the room.
“About time!” she says. “Now eat that breakfast and
shift those bones.”
She guides him to a chair at the table. There’s a bowl
of cornfl akes and some toast and some orange juice. She
hums a tune and spreads her arms and shifts her feet in a
gentle dance. She smiles and sighs as he eats and drinks.
“Now get yourself out into the world,” she says.
“What world?”
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The Color of the Sun
“The lovely world outside that door.”
He grins.
“I’ve been there before, Mam. I’ve seen it all before.”
She grins back at him.
“Aye,” she says. “But you haven’t been in it on this
day, and you haven’t seen it in this light.”
“And what if there’s a mad axman on the loose out
there?”
She taps her cheek and ponders for a moment.
“That’s a good point,” she says. Then she shrugs.
“It’s just a risk you’ll have to take!”
She laughs at the haversack. She asks what’s inside
and he tells her.
“Those old things!” she says. “Didn’t you use to
love them!”
She smiles as she gazes back into the past for a
moment.
Then she puts a little package into his hand. It’s a
piece of warm bara brith, wrapped in waxed paper.
“There’s butter on it,” she says. “And there’s a slice
of Cheshire cheese with it. Won’t it be delicious? Put
it in the bottom of your sack so you won’t be tempted
to eat it too soon.”
He does that.
6 p
David Almond
She puts her hands around his head and plants a kiss
at the top of his skull. She blows away the fl oury dust
that she leaves there. She spreads her hand across his
back and gently guides him to the door.
“Go on,” she says. “There’ll be time enough for
sitting about when you get to be as old as me.”
“I’ll never get as old as that!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she whispers.
She kisses him again.
“Now, my Davie, out you go. Don’t hurry back.
The day is long, the world is wide, you’re young and
free.”
And out he goes, to start his wandering.
TWO
Should I go up, he wonders, or should I go down? He tosses
a coin. Down. He doesn’t walk far, just to the heart of
this little town, the place he’s lived since he was born,
the place where everything is so familiar.
He sits on the gray pavement opposite the houses
on Ethel Terrace, with his back against the wall of the
Columba Club. It’s clean enough. No dog muck, no
cigarette butts, just some dust and slivers of slate that
must’ve come down from cracks in the roof. Nothing
seems to move. His mood declines. He gets that feeling
that he sometimes gets these days, that he hates this dead-
end place, where nothing seems to happen, nothing
seems to change. Sometimes he just wants to walk out
of it and keep on walking and leave it all behind. But
he knows he’s too young to do that yet, and anyway
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David Almond
today it’s like he’s got no energy. Like there’s nothing
in the world he wants to do.
So he just sits there, in the dust.
For a moment he thinks about Elizabeth McErlane.
He met her in the square yesterday evening. She wanted
him to go down to Holly Hill Park with her, but he
held back. She asked if he was daft. She said most lads
would be with her like a shot if she asked them to Holly
Hill Park.
“You’re like a wet weekend,” she said. “It’s like
you’re on the point of tears even when a lass is making
eyes at you.”
He knows she’s got a point, but you’d think she’d
try to sympathize. She’s not the one who lost her dad
just a few weeks back. How would she feel about that?
He moves his thoughts away from her. If he’s
honest, he’s not too bothered. He’s still more interested
in playing football than in being with lasses. He does
try, like lots of the lads do, and sometimes he loves it,
like lots of the lads do, but kissing’s never as sweet as
making a perfect diving header or curving the ball into
an imaginary net. He has to admit that Elizabeth’s very
bonny, though, and she does bring about some pretty
amazing dreams.
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The Color of the Sun
He’s in full sunlight. The wall at his back is already
warming up. There’s hardly a soul in sight. Not a
breath of wind. There’s somebody singing somewhere
far away, and somebody playing a fi ddle. As Davie
listens, he takes out the sketchbook and pencils. He
starts to draw what he can see: the dark roadway, the
gray pavements, the steel fences and stone walls of Ethel
Terrace. It’s all so colorless, all so static, all so empty, all
so drab. A crow fl aps over him and lands on the roof of
Ethel Terrace. He draws it, that beautiful streamlined
jet-black shape. It stays a few short moments, then it
caws and up it goes, black silhouette fl ying over him,
rising into the endless blue. He draws its fl ight as a black
line fading as it stretches to the page’s edge. Then closes
his eyes and lifts his arms and stretches them out wide
at his side. He laughs at himself. Sees himself as Jesus
hanging on the cross in agony in church. Then changes
what he sees and feels, and has the better feeling, the
old feeling he’s had since he was small, that his arms
are wings. He stretches them wide, becomes a bird,
rising from this dry and dusty place, soaring away into
the sunlit distance.
“Flying far?” says someone.
Davie comes back to earth and opens his eyes. It’s
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David Almond
Wilf Pew from Wellington Street, standing just a few
feet away.
“Flying far, I said,” says Wilf.
Wilf ’s got his long gray coat on even in this heat.
He always wears the thing. Maybe he thinks it’ll
hide the fact that he’s got a false leg. Doesn’t work.
Everybody knows and nobody’s bothered. Why should
they be?
“Cat got your tongue?” says Wilf.
“No,” says Davie.
“Good.”
Wilf takes a tube of fruit gummies out of his pocket
and holds it out. There’s gray fl uff on the orange one
that’s at the top of the tube.
“No, thanks,” says Davie.
Wilf shakes his head in disappointment.
“You young’ns,” he says. “You should never turn
down a gift, you know. What the hell’s become of
you all?”
He holds the orange gummy up to the sun, then puts
it into his mouth, chews and grins.
“Blimmin’ lovely!” he says. “Absolutely blimmin’
lovely!”
He wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
11 p
The Color of the Sun
“Anyway,” he says. “Enough of that. So what’s the
plan?”
“The plan?”
“Aye, the plan. What you up to? Where you going?
How you gonna make yer mark?”
Davie sighs, sits there, says nothing.
“Look at ye,” says Wilf. “Sitting there with yer face
trippin’ ye.”
He leans over toward the boy and widens his eyes.
“It might never happen, ye knaa,” says Wilf.
Davie groans. Why do blokes say things like that?
What are you supposed to say to things as daft as that?
Then Wilf frowns and bends down and bangs himself
hard on the thigh of what must be his false leg.
“Damn thing!” he says. “Be better off without the
silly thing. Wouldn’t I?”
Davie says nothing.
“The answer is I would!” Wilf snaps. “One day I’ll
rip it off and fl ing it aside and I’ll be free!”
Then he starts to limp away and he kind of shimmers
in the heat, but he pauses and turns back for a moment.
“I knaa you’ve had some bother,” he says. “But
there’s many a body worse off than you!”
He opens his coat wide and shows his legs.
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David Almond
“This is a world of wonder!” he yells. “And some
folk stroll through it with their eyes down to the dirt
like it’s all nowt but a great big bore!”
He heads off, but he turns back yet again.
“Look around you!” he says. “You should be
running around dancing and singing your head off at
the glory of it all!”
He digs in his pocket and takes out the gummies
and fl ings one of the sweets toward Davie. It bounces
on the pavement and comes to rest against Davie’s leg.
“Eat it up!” says Wilf. “It’ll diy ye good!”
Then he twirls on his false leg and the long gray coat
swirls around him. He fl inches and groans in what must
be pain, then giggles at himself and turns his face to the
sky and sings a weird, wordless, joyful song.
He yells back one fi nal thing.
“There’ll come a time when you have to leave this
wondrous place, you know!”
Then at last he’s gone.
Davie picks the gummy up. It’s yellow. He rubs the
dust and fl uff off it. Wilf Pew. When Davie was a boy
he was scared of the bloke, who was always limping
back and forward through the town. But Davie’s mam
told him that Wilf was harmless. She said that one
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The Color of the Sun
summer he walked all the way to Edinburgh and back
just to prove that he could do it. He’s a bold, brave
man, she used to say. And he’d had his dose of tragedy.
Tragedy? Davie asked. Aye, the story is he had a lovely
lass once and he was about to marry her, and she went and
died, too young.
Davie licks the gummy. He eats it. As it dissolves
deliciously on his tongue, he shuts his eyes and lets the
sun shine down on him. What a summer it’s turning
out to be. He hears some kids laughing in the park. He
sees bonny Elizabeth wandering inside him. He sees
his dad sitting on the sofa at home all shrunken and
knackered and gasping for breath. He sees other things
he doesn’t want to see. Why do they keep on appearing
like this? Why can’t he turn his mind away from them?
What is it about the mind that keeps moving from
picture to picture, even to ones that are horrible to see?
Then there’s something hot and slobbery on his
hands. The tongue of a big dog, licking him. Davie
gasps. For a moment he thinks it’s the black-and-brown
dog called Stew, but of course it’s not. Yes, it’s black
and brown, but the pattern’s really different, and this
dog’s far bigger, and it’s gasping and grunting, and its
tongue is horrible and hot and wet. He tries to shove
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David Almond
it off, but it won’t budge, so he stands up and shoves
it with his foot. It snarls and bares its teeth and looks
like it’s going to go for him, but in the end it packs in
and slopes off.
Davie doesn’t know whether to sit down again or to
wander a bit more. He thinks about tossing a coin, but
he doesn’t. He looks about and tries to fi nd something
colorful to draw, then suddenly somebody else appears
right beside him. It’s his mate, Gosh Todd. He stands
sideways in front of Davie and looks up and down the
street like somebody might be watching or listening.
Then he leans in close and whispers, “I seen a body,
Davie.”
“Eh?”
“A body.”
“What kind of body?”
“A dead one, Davie. Do you want to see?”
Three
“It’s in the rubble,” says Gosh. “Where they’re pulling
down the old church hall.”
He looks Davie in the eye like he’s waiting for him
to say something, but Davie doesn’t know what to say.
“Are you sure it was dead?” he says at last.
“Aye. I seen the knife.”
“The knife?”
“Aye. The one that killed him. There was blood and
everything, Davie.”
Davie tries cursing and swearing to see if that feels
like the right kind of thing to say.
“Whose body was it?” says Davie.
“I can’t be sure,” says Gosh. “I seen it and I nearly
jumped out me skin and didn’t dare get too close. But
I think it was Jimmy Killen.”
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David Almond
“Eh? Why would it be Jimmy Killen?”
“He had them tight jeans on that he wears. And that
green checky Levi’s shirt.”
Davie tries cursing and swearing again.
“Jimmy Killen,” he whispers.
“Aye. And if it was Jimmy Killen then I reckon the
killer was Zorro Craig.”
Gosh nods and grins and widens his eyes.
“Aye,” he goes on. “Zorro Craig. It’s obvious when
you think about it, isn’t it? Who else could it be? It’s
how it was all bound to turn out.”
“Was it?”
“Aye. You know how they went on. You know
how they hated each other, like all the Craigs hate all
the Killens and all the Killens hate all the Craigs.”
“I thought that was over and done with.”
“Mebbe it’s not that easy. And them two, they were
the worst of the lot of them, weren’t they? They were
like bliddy beasts.”
Gosh is right about the Killens and the Craigs. It’s
been going on for years, ever since Davie’s dad was a kid.
His dad never understood it. Davie never understands
it. How could two families get into such a state about
each other? Why did they not get fed up with hating
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The Color of the Sun
each other? But could it really come to this? Murder?
Could Zorro Craig really be a murderer? Aye, he was
mental. But this?
“Anyway,” says Gosh, “I run down to the police
station and I tell the sergeant there. He says am I sure
I’m not just seeing things. Like he thinks that nowt like
that could happen in a place like this, or like he thinks
somebody like Gosh Todd would say anything to get
folk stirred up on a sleepy sunny morning. But in the
end he knows he has to take a look, ’specially when he
realizes the Craigs and Killens might be involved, so he
goes with me and that’s that. He gets the doctor and
the priest. They telt me to tell nobody but now I’ve
telt you. Do you wanna come and see?”
Davie hesitates.
“Howay,” says Gosh. “It was just half an hour ago.
Mebbe it’ll still be there.”
Davie hesitates. What would it be like to see a body?
And to see a body that had been murdered? And Zorro
Craig? Everybody knew he was a monster. But would
he kill?
“Howay,” says Gosh. “It’s not every day you get a
chance like this.”
Gosh looks at the pencils and the book.
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David Almond
“And you’ve got to admit it’s a bit more interesting
than coloring in.”
Davie shrugs. He has to go, he has to see. He puts
the pencils and the book into his sack, puts the sack on
his back, and off they go.
Of course, lots of folk have heard by now that
something’s going on down there. As they head across
the square and down High Street, there’s lots of people
doing the same. They’re frowning and whispering and
shrugging.
One of Davie’s neighbors, a woman called Mrs.
Keen from number six who used to be a teacher, stops
him as he and Gosh hurry by.
“What’s going on, Davie?” she asks in a trembly
voice.
Gosh knocks Davie with his elbow, telling him to
tell her nowt.
“I don’t know,” Davie tells her. “Maybe it’s just
nowt.”
She clicks her tongue.
“Don’t say nowt, Davie,” she says. “It’s so coarse.
The word is nothing.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Keen,” says Davie. “I know that.”
And they walk on.
19 p
The Color of the Sun
The old school hall’s through some gates just past
the church. It’s been getting demolished for the past
month or so. Good riddance to it, thinks Davie. Some
of the most boring times of his life have happened in
there. Prayer meetings and hymn practices and talks
about the body and the soul and whether it’s a sin to
think too much about girls. Unhappy, boring blokes in
black telling kids to lift their souls up to the Lord and
to tiptoe past the chasms that lead to Hell. God, how
he hated all that stuff. Get rid of it all. Cart it away.
There’s a fi re engine parked up on High Street.
There’s a couple of police cars. There’s an ambulance
inside the gates. There’s a massive policeman, PC Poole,
standing by the gates telling people to keep back. Folk are
talking in hushed voices. Nobody knows anything, but
something must have got out because there’s whispering
about death and murder and mayhem. Davie sees some
kids he knows. Shona Doonan’s there, in a bright red
dress. She’s from a family of singers and musicians, the
Doonans. They sang some of Davie’s dad’s favorite songs
in the Columba Club after the funeral. “Waters of Tyne.”
“Felton Lonnen.” “Bonny at Morn.” Maybe it was her
that he heard singing. She waves at him.
He waves shyly back. He looks up at the church
20 p
David Almond
that’s just a short walk away from here. He blinks, and
he sees his dad’s coffi n being carried in. He sees it being
carried out. He sees the funeral cars, all the people
dressed in black. He sees himself holding his mam’s
arm. He sees her holding him.
“Howay, man, Davie.”
Gosh grabs Davie’s arm. He guides him through the
crowd to PC Poole, who holds his hand out like he’s
ordering traffi c to stop. Gosh stoops under the hand,
then stands on tiptoe and whispers to the policeman like
he whispered to Davie.
“I’m the one that found the body,” he says.
Poole narrows his eyes.
“I’m the one that telt the sergeant about it,” Gosh
says. “It’s Jimmy Killen, isn’t it?”
Poole says nowt. The crowd’s getting bigger. They’re
pressing at the gate.
The policeman’s getting cross.
“Hold your horses!” he snaps at the crowd.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” says Gosh.
Davie and Gosh peer past the policeman. Gosh tells
Davie that the ambulance is hiding the spot where the
body is. Davie leans sideways trying to see, but he can’t.
All he sees is rubble, no body.
21 p
The Color of the Sun
“I think I know who might of done it,” says Gosh.
Poole narrows his eyes again.
“Done what?” he says.
“Committed the murder,” says Gosh. “It is a murder,
isn’t it?”
Poole says nowt.
“It is,” says Gosh. “And I know who done it. Me
mate does and all.”
Poole looks at Davie. He can feel he’s blushing.
“Aye,” says Gosh. “So mebbe you should let us
through so we can have a word with the sergeant.”
Poole looks uncertain.
“Keep back, will you?” he says to the crowd. “Show
a bit of order and respect.”
“You should,” says Gosh. “The killer could be miles
away already.”
“Every minute counts,” says Davie.
He catches his breath. He hadn’t expected to say
anything at all, but he fi nds he’s very pleased with
himself.
Gosh is too.
“What Davie says is right,” he says.
“What if he’s already tracking down his next victim?”
says Davie.
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David Almond
“What if he’s already killed again?” says Gosh.
The policeman glances back toward where the
invisible sergeant is.
“OK,” he tells the two lads. “Go through.”
They walk past the ambulance. There’s a driver at the
wheel reading the Daily Mirror and smoking a cigarette, Mirror
dead calm, like a murder happens every day in these
parts. There’s a lass sitting beside him who must be a
nurse. Behind the ambulance there’s the sergeant and
old Dr. Drummond and daft Father Noone. Davie sees
most of the body now: legs in jeans, black winklepicker
boots, a green checky Levi’s shirt. Davie’s seen Jimmy
walking round wearing that. He’d love one just like it
for himself. He starts wondering what’ll happen to the
shirt now that Jimmy’s dead. There’s a splash of blood
on it, bright red against the green. Davie wonders if
the bloodstains will wash off. The priest’s kneeling
there as well. He’s bobbing back and forward as he
prays, and between the bobs Davie sees the face. Yes,
defi nitely Jimmy Killen. The priest’s got a little crucifi x
in his hand, and he’s pressing it on Jimmy’s brow and
muttering something low and gentle.
Davie stares. He’s never seen anybody dead before.
His mam said he could go to see his dad in the chapel
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The Color of the Sun
of rest if he wanted to, but he couldn’t do it. Jimmy
just looks like he did in life, not much different
at all.
“It’s you,” says the sergeant to Gosh.
“Aye,” says Gosh. “And this is me mate, Davie.”
“What’s he got to do with it all?”
“He knows who the killer is.”
The doctor and sergeant both goggle at Davie.
Davie can’t look at them because now he can see
the knife, lying on the rubble next to Jimmy’s chest.
There’s blood on it, on the blade and the handle.
“I telt you,” says Gosh.
The priest doesn’t stop muttering. His lips are close
to Jimmy’s ear.
“So who’s the killer?” says the doctor.
“Zorro Craig,” Davie fi nds himself saying.
“Zorro Craig!” says the doctor.
“How do you know that?” says the sarge.
Davie stares at Jimmy’s face again. It’s pale and still.
It’s like Jimmy’s just asleep.
The sarge asks Davie again.
“Gosh told me,” says Davie.
“And how do you know?” says the sarge.
“’Cos Jimmy’s a Killen and Zorro is a Craig. They’re
24 p
David Almond
a bunch of animals and they’ve always been at war,
haven’t they? And them two were the worst of all.”
“But we cannot jump to —” starts the sarge.
“I heard him saying it when he was six years old,”
says Gosh. “ ‘Aa’m ganna kill ye, Killen.’ ”
The doctor and the sergeant stare at Gosh in wonder.
“You heard it and all, didn’t you, Davie?” says
Gosh.
“Aye,” mutters Davie. “We were all pretty mental
back then.”
“Aye, but it . . . intensifi ed,” says Gosh. “I heard
him just last week in Holly Hill Park. Last Tuesday,
it was. ‘Ye’ll get what’s comin,’ he says. ‘Killen, aa’m
ganna send ye to yer grave.’ ”
“Bliddy hell,” says the sarge. “And why would he
say something like that last Tuesday?”
“Dunno,” says Gosh. “It’s what enemies do. I think
this time it was something about a lass.”
“About a lass?” says the sarge.
“Aye,” says Gosh. “It’s usually lasses, isn’t it? Like
in ancient times.”
“What?” says the sarge. “Which lass?”
Gosh shrugs.
“Dunno,” he says.
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The Color of the Sun
He turns to Davie.
“Do you know?” he says.
“Me?” says Davie.
“I think they both had lots of lasses,” says Gosh.
“But mebbe this time it was doomed love.”
Davie looks at Gosh. What the hell’s he on about?
The doctor mutters something.
“Eh?” says the sarge.
“I said the human condition is a vessel of great
mystery,” says the doctor.
“You’re right there, doc,” says the sarge.
The priest stops his muttering. He presses his thumb
onto Jimmy’s brow. He says, “Amen.”
He stands up and looks like he’s come out of some
dream. There’s gray plaster dust all over his black
clothes.
“I have done what I can,” he says. “I’m sure the
lad’s sins will be forgiven.” He says the same thing that
he said about Davie’s dad. “I’m sure God will have
prepared a place for him.”
For Jimmy Killen? Davie wants to say, but he
doesn’t.
He looks at the air above the body like he expects
to see Jimmy’s soul fl oating there, like he expects to
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David Almond
see it rising from the demolition site and into the wide
clear sky.
The sarge takes a little black notebook and pencil out
of his pocket. He opens the book and starts to write,
then stops. He frowns.
“This is all happening a bit too quick for me,” he
says.
Tears are gathering in his eyes. His lips are trembling.
“I wish it wasn’t happening at all,” he says.
“Strange events can take place anywhere, sergeant,”
Davie fi nds himself saying.
“And who knows what can fester in the human
heart?” says Gosh.
Davie stares at him. Where the hell did Gosh learn
to say something like that?
The priest steps off the rubble and some of it slips,
and Jimmy’s body lurches sideways. The sergeant gasps
in horror. For a moment Davie expects everything,
Jimmy’s body, rubble and all, to collapse into the dark,
dingy cellars that he knows exist just below. But it
doesn’t. Everything settles into place again.
The sergeant blows his breath out.
He looks just like a little boy dressed up in policemen’s
clothes.
27 p
The Color of the Sun
“Top brass from Newcastle are on their way,” he
says.
He takes his helmet off and sweat trickles down from
his forehead.
“They’ll know what to do,” he says.
“They’ll probably want to talk to you, lad,” he
says to Gosh. “And mebbe to you as well,” he says to
Davie.
Davie looks toward the crowd at the gates. They’re
dying to get in to see. He waves at Shona again and she
waves back. She’s really bonny. He’d never properly
noticed before.
There’s a siren somewhere in the distance.
“That must be them,” says the sarge. “Thank God
for that.”
“What do we do about Jimmy?” says Davie.
“That’s not for you to think about,” says the sarge.
“He can’t be moved, not till there’s instructions from
the top.”
The sun’s shining bright on Jimmy Killen. It’s getting
hotter. How soon till a body starts to rot, till it starts to
stink? Davie looks past the church and over the rooftops
toward the hills at the top of town. It’s all a bit stupid.
It’s like the whole town’s come to look at a poor body
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David Almond
lying in the dust. He’s bored with it already. He wants
to get away. He wants to be free. He’s thinking of
wandering up that way, going up to the top and over
the top and carrying on into the sunlit distance all alone.
Maybe that’s the way that Zorro Craig went after he
killed Jimmy, if he did kill Jimmy. It’d make sense.
There’s so much space over there, so many places to
run and hide. Places you could hide forever if you really
wanted to. That’s where Davie will head for.
The doctor’s holding Gosh’s face and looking into
his eyes.
“How are you feeling, young man?” he says.
Gosh shrugs.
“Champion,” he says.
“Do you need me?” says Davie to the sarge.
“Need you?”
“To give evidence or anything?”
“Anyone who knew the lad will be questioned, I
expect.”
“Can I go?”
“Go?” says Gosh. “Where you bliddy going?”
“Nowhere,” Davie tells him. “Just wandering.”
“Wandering? But, Davie, man.”
Davie shrugs. He knows Gosh won’t want to
29 p
The Color of the Sun
come with him. He’ll want to stay here where the
excitement is.
“Mebbe I’ll catch up with Zorro Craig,” says Davie.
“Mebbe I’ll hunt him down and bring him back to
justice.”
The sergeant grunts.
“Don’t you think of that,” he says. “That’s a job for
the professionals, lad.”
The doctor catches Davie’s arm as he turns away.
“And you?” he says. “Are you champion as well,
young man?”
Davie doesn’t answer. He’s known this kind and
ancient doctor for as long as he can remember. He can
recall the feeling of his fi ngers as he tapped Davie’s
chest, the coldness of the stethoscope above his heart,
the gentle tap on his cheek, the gentle voice that told
his mam she had herself a fi ne, strong little lad. And he
can recall the day of his dad’s death. The doctor stood
in the living room with his black bag in his hand and
murmured to Davie’s mam that he was so sorry, that
there was nothing anybody could have done. Then he
opened the door to step out, and Davie saw black-clad
Father Noone coming along the street, already heading
toward his home.
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David Almond
“Are you?” says the doctor again.
“Aye,” Davie says. “I’m champion, Dr. Drummond,
thanks.”
He walks off.
“Don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” says the doctor.
Davie keeps on walking. It’s like he’s being lifted out
of himself, like he’s coming to life.
Four
As he passes PC Poole and twists his way through the
crowd, folk keep trying to get the answers from him.
“Is it true?” some of them say.
“Is what true?”
“That there’s a body? That there’s been a murder?”
Davie says he can’t say nowt.
They name some names and one or two of them even
name Jimmy Killen, but Davie’s face doesn’t fl icker.
“A murder!” someone gasps. “Here, in Little
Felling!”
“The telly’ll be here. All the papers!”
“It happens, even in places like this.”
“Why shouldn’t it happen here? The world is a
strange and wicked place.”
Davie keeps on moving.
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David Almond
“Is it true?” they keep on asking.
“The world is weird,” Davie says. “And who knows
what festers in the human heart?”
He passes close to Shona. She touches his arm and
comes in close.
Her red dress is bright as fi re in the sunlight.
“Did you see it?” she says.
“See what?”
“The body, Davie! You did, didn’t you?”
“Aye,” he answers.
“What was it like? Was it scary? Could you look
upon it?”
She’s got such a sweet and lovely voice, like she’s
singing even when she’s talking, even when she’s asking
about things like this.
“Was it you singing?” he asks her.
“When?”
“Just this morning. Just a little while ago.”
“I’m always singing, Davie.”
She shrugs.
“So it could have been,” she says.
His mind goes back to the Columba Club, after the
funeral, when the guests were leaving. He’d asked her
how the hell she could sing so well.
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The Color of the Sun
She’d shrugged and smiled.
“It just pours out of me, Davie,” she said. “It just pours
out of all of us, the way that songs pour out of birds.”
She touched his arm.
“I’m so sorry about your dad,” she said.
He’d thanked her for that.
“It could pour out of anyone,” she said as he turned
back to his mam. “It could pour out of you, Davie, if
you found a way to let it.”
She’s so lovely. Her blue eyes are so bright. He tells
her the body was strange, that it was amazing, that it
seemed to be only sleeping, still alive. She listens, and
he imagines staying here with her, watching everything
along with her, then walking away from this place
with her at dusk, holding her hand, going far into the
distance, fi lled with excitement, but he tells himself he
must keep moving.
“I’ve got to go, Shona,” he says.
“I could come with you,” she says softly. “If you’d
like me to.”
He almost says yes, but he says no.
“I’m not even sure where I’m going,” he says.
“Ah, well. Mebbe we’ll see each other when you
get back.”
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David Almond
“Aye. I hope so.”
He walks away.
Mrs. Keen’s there, hovering. She’s on tiptoes and
her eyes are wide and scared and excited.
“What is the truth, Davie?” she says as he passes by.
Davie shrugs.
“I can’t say nowt, Mrs. Keen.”
She’s about to say something back, but suddenly
there’s screaming and sobbing, and here’s Jimmy
Killen’s mother with a policewoman coming down
High Street.
“Jimmy!” she sobs as the policewoman guides her
toward the crowd and toward her dead son beyond.
“Jimmy! My little Jimmy!”
So that’s it. The truth is out.
And now here’s the top brass from Newcastle, big
blokes in black uniforms, squashed into a little blue
police car with a blue light fl ashing on its roof.
Davie heads up High Street past all the shops.
Everybody else is streaming down. Shopkeepers
are gathering together in their doorways, gossiping.
Jack Hall the newsagent is clambering about in his
front window, putting stuff in a rack: American cop
magazines, murder mysteries, Batman comics. Joe
35 p
The Color of the Sun
Wiffen’s writing in white on his window: brown ale
and mcewan’s export at nockdown prices ask inside.
Already some of the shops are shut and the owners
are heading to the murder scene.
Davie’s suddenly hungry. Luckily, Molly Myers
hasn’t closed the pork shop doors.
Davie goes inside and buys a pork pie.
“You been down there, son?” Molly asks.
“Aye,” says Davie.
“What’s the info? Any clues?”
He may as well tell her now.
“Jimmy Killen’s been killed,” he says.
“Jimmy Killen?”
“Aye. He’s been knifed, Mrs. Myers.”
“Hell’s teeth. Who by?”
He can’t tell her that. He bites into the pork pie. It’s
delicious, the way the meat and the jelly around it mix
with the pastry, the way it clags together in his mouth.
“I dunno,” he says.
He takes another bite. He checks his change and
tries to buy another pie, but Molly says he can have it
for nowt. She holds it out to Davie and bows her head
like it’s an offering.
“That’s for the info,” she says. “Jimmy Killen, eh?”
36 p
David Almond
“Aye.”
“I know how crazy that lot get. But this?”
She shakes her head.
“What’s the world coming to?” she says.
Davie shakes his head.
“Dunno,” he says. “It’s all a mystery, Mrs. Myers.”
She smiles.
“It is that,” she answers.
As Davie turns away she asks him.
“Where you going?”
“I’m not sure, Mrs. Myers.”
“Is it safe?”
“Safe?”
“Is it safe to be wandering off when there’s a
murderer in town?”
“But he could be anywhere, Mrs. Myers.” He looks
to the back of the shop, where the massive meat fridge is.
“He could be hiding in your meat fridge, Mrs. Myers.”
She gasps and her eyes widen in shock.
“In me meat fridge?”
He can see she’s trembling.
“Shall I have a look?” he says.
“Aye. Take this knife, though, eh?”
She puts a long butcher’s knife into his hand. He goes
37 p
The Color of the Sun
to the fridge door. He knows the murderer probably
won’t be in there, but he feels his heart thudding. Mrs.
Myers is gasping. His hand trembles as he reaches for
the handle. He doesn’t know whether to ease it open
dead slowly so that the murderer suspects nothing or to
yank it open suddenly in order to terrify him. And he
doesn’t know what he’ll do if he does fi nd the killer in
there. Will he go wild and attack Zorro with the knife?
Will he turn around and run out of the shop howling?
Will he just stand there and scream in terror? In the end
he slowly inches the door open. He raises the knife in
preparation but then he lowers it again. Nothing. The
fridge is big enough for one or two murderers to be
hiding in it. But all that’s inside is a single dead skinned
pig hanging from a hook.
“Nothing,” he says to Mrs. Myers.
“Nothing,” she sighs. “Oh, thank you, son.”
She puts her hand out for the knife. For a moment
he wonders if he should borrow it, and keep it in his
sack, in case he needs it during the day. But she takes
it from him.
“You be careful as you go on,” she says.
“I will be, Mrs. Myers.”
He goes out again with the two pies in his hand. He
38 p
David Almond
fi nds himself thinking about the dead pig in the fridge
and the dead pig in the pies. Once, in the church hall,
he was with a group of kids talking with a visiting priest
about animals and souls. Patricia Knott asked if animals
had souls the way that people do. She said she was sure
her cat had a soul. The cat was called George. She said
she could see the soul shining through George’s eyes.
She said it looked almost human. The priest glared.
He said that Patricia was wrong. He told her she must
not think in that way. It was heresy. Beasts are not
spiritual beings. They are lesser than humans. Only
human beings have souls, with all the blessings and the
perils that this brings. Only human beings are made in
the image of God.
When they left the church hall, Patricia groaned.
“What a load of bollix,” she said.
Davie looks at the inside of the pie. The meat’s dull
gray and pink with bits of white in it. Fat, he supposes.
The jelly’s like glue. He takes another bite. If the pig
did have a soul, where would the soul be now? Is there
a heaven for pigs? he wonders. And if there is, do they
run free and wild in it like ancient boars did in ancient
forests? Or do they just lie about and sing to God like
dead humans are supposed to do? He stops himself.